A surge in Cuban and Nicaraguan arrivals at the US border with Mexico in December led to the highest number of illegal border crossings recorded during any month of Joe Biden’s presidency, authorities said.
The extraordinary influx came shortly before Biden introduced measures on January 5 to deter Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
US authorities stopped migrants 2,51,487 times along the Mexican border in December, up 7 per cent from 2,34,896 times in November and up 40 per cent from 1,79,253 times in December 2021, Customs and Border Protection said Friday.
Cubans were stopped nearly 43,000 times in December, up 23 per cent from November and more than quintuple the same period a year earlier. Nicaraguans were stopped more than 35,000 times, up 3 per cent from November and more than double from December 2021.
More migrants were also stopped from Ecuador and Peru.
The influx from Cuba and Nicaragua made El Paso, Texas, the busiest of the Border Patrol’s nine sectors on the Mexican border for a third month in a row. The city was overwhelmed with migrants who were released to pursue their immigration cases in the US in the weeks leading up to Biden’s visit on January 8, his first to the border as president.
The number of Venezuelan arrivals remained far below September highs, when the South American country was the second-highest nationality at the border after
Mexicans.